


Within the Walls

by getoffmyhead



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: F/M, Family, Home Tour, M/M, Polyamory, Raising kids
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-14
Updated: 2019-02-14
Packaged: 2019-10-25 06:36:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,731
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17720012
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/getoffmyhead/pseuds/getoffmyhead
Summary: Between the three of them, they'd owned houses all over the world. They had a vacation house in Florida, a lake house in Nova Scotia, and a condo in Moscow, but there's only one house they truly call home.





	Within the Walls

**Author's Note:**

  * For [verity](https://archiveofourown.org/users/verity/gifts).



> Based kinda loosely on the prompt: How much more obsessive would Sid be about designing a house for their happy triad family? THIS MUCH MORE. 
> 
> Man, I really hope you like kids, because this became way more kid-centric when the narrative started following Sid around.

Though he would never admit it, Sid loved the fact that Geno took over designing the gym when they built their house. If it had been up to him, Sid would have gone with a setting he could control, somewhere closed in and safe from environmental changes. He probably would have gone with the basement, if he’d been allowed to choose. 

But Geno had an eye for design, if not décor, and he’d seen the potential immediately. He’d insisted that they build it with a retractable door instead of an exterior wall, something they could pull up to enjoy the fresh air. Sid had been skeptical.

“We’re never even here when it’s nice out,” he’d protested, because at the time they were both hockey players. They spent most of their summers travelling, and their family went with them. Nobody would ever be in the house to enjoy the open-air gym.

Geno shook his head, stubbornly digging his heels in. “Trust me, it’s good. You see.” 

“It would be a selling point for the house down the road,” their builder offered across the desk, where he was making a million notes about their soon-to-be home. 

“See?” Geno had said smugly, sitting back with his arms crossed. “It’s good idea. Anya?”

Anna had shrugged because she was not about to give up her social life to work out at the house like a hermit. The home gym was entirely on them. “Anything you want.”

Sid grimaced at the thought of the drafts it would create and the warmth from the sunlight through the windows. There was nothing worse than an uncomfortable gym. It discouraged motivated workouts. But he also saw how much it meant to Geno and knew that a serious protest would cause a mulish fight, and he definitely didn’t want that at the builder’s office.

“We can of course set it up with dedicated environmental controls,” the builder continued, sketching away at something on his desk. “So you won’t be a slave to Pittsburgh weather.”

He’d smiled up at Sid then, a quick, amused look. They’d been working together for a few weeks at that point, and he was getting used to their individual wants and concerns. He must have read Sid’s incredulity on his face. Sid returned the smile gratefully and conceded to whatever kitschy thing Geno wanted to do to the gym he would use half as much as Sid. 

Sid’s doubt had quickly turned around when they moved in. The house was finished in early summer. He’d taken a break from unpacking the day after the movers dropped everything off and wandered into the gym for a round of cardio on the treadmill. While he ran, his eyes kept drifting toward the glass-paned retractable wall. He could see out into the back yard, short-cropped grass leading up to a line of evergreens. The branches of the trees swayed in a comfortable breeze while he started to sweat.

He’d told himself it was just to appease Geno when he hopped off the treadmill and ascended the half-stairs up to the panel on the wall. He’d told himself it was because it would save on the air conditioning bill. But the reality was, he’d continued running with the breeze wafting in and been totally sold. He opened the gym door as much as he could, weather permitting.

The open door meant he could hear a car rolling up the driveway while he performed a set of split squats during the last part of his afternoon workout. The car stopped short of the garage, and he rolled his eyes with a wry grin. Geno was the worst about stopping the car in front of the house instead of taking it all the way to the garage on the side of the house and parking it. Sid would wind up moving it later. 

Sid distantly heard car doors when Geno and Nikita got out and shut them. Sid wasn’t a huge fan of Nikita riding in the little Porsche, not even in the back seat, but it was a short ride from school and Geno only picked him up a couple times a week. Clearly, the ride had been exciting because Nikita was chattering away, too distant to make out the words, and Geno barely got a word or two in response. Their voices faded as they neared the house and then stopped altogether when they went inside. 

The interior door to the gym opened predictably moments later. Sid wasn’t angled to see it from where he’d moved on to preacher curls on the bench, but he could hear small, seven-year-old feet carefully descending the stairs. 

“Dad!” Nikita practically shouted as he shot into view and stopped. He had something behind his back.

“Hey, kiddo. What’s up?” 

“Today in art class we got to make masks,” Nikita said, rocking on his heels in his exuberance.

“Oh yeah? What kind of masks?”

“All kinds. We could do anything that makes us feel happy.”

“What did you make? Let me guess. Was it... Iron Man?”

“Nope!” Nikita said. He looked so sure Sid wouldn’t get it, pleased and proud and a little mischievous. It was an eerily familiar expression, one he saw on Geno all the time. 

Sid put on a deliberating face. “Was it Link?”

“No! Do you give up?” he asked hopefully.

“Yeah, I give up.”

Nikita lit up with delight. “Okay, hang on. Don’t look.”

Sid set his dumbbell down and obediently covered his eyes with his hand to wait. Nikita shuffled around briefly, then tapped him. 

“Okay. You can open your eyes.”

Sid dropped his hand. A papier-mâché penguin stared back at him with Nikita’s hopeful eyes. “Oh, hello Mr. Penguin. Have you seen my son? He was just right here. He was going to show me something.”

“Dad!” Nikita exclaimed, but he was laughing. He pushed the mask up to sit on top of his head. “Do you like it?”

“Of course I do. It’s very good. You made it yourself?”

“Yep! Well, Mrs. Baker helped a little bit and I-”

“Nikita,” Geno said from within the house. He sounded perturbed, which Sid had come to anticipate on the three days a week he went for physical therapy. He never came home angry, just less patient, a little sullen.

“In here,” Sid called over his shoulder while Nikita wilted.

Geno descended the steps with an exasperated sigh. “What did you promise to do when you got home?” he asked in Russian.

“Clean my room,” Nikita said contritely. “But I just wanted to show Dad what I made in art today, and then I was gonna go do it!”

Geno appeared in long, slow strides that barely showed signs of favoring one side. “Go do that, please.”

“Yes, Papa,” Nikita droned. He turned and dragged himself back up the steps like his feet were encased in cement. 

Sid chuckled after Nikita was out of sight. “Look at you, bad cop.”

The lines of fret creasing Geno’s forehead since they left Moscow two months back faded when he smiled. He leaned in and kissed Sid, then made a face when he pulled back. “Sweaty.”

"You came to the gym,” he said unsympathetically while he lay back to start a set of barbell presses. 

To his surprise, Geno stayed with him and took a seat on a nearby stability ball. He clasped his hands between his knees and looked out into the back yard. Birds sang loudly from the trees and insects buzzed, idyllic and peaceful, and it did nothing to keep the frown from settling back onto Geno’s face. 

“How was physio?” Sid asked as he gripped the bar, though he could tell by the continued drag of contemplative silence it probably wasn’t great. Each session was taking on greater weight as the summer wound down into fall. Penguins training camp was fast approaching, and Geno was still limping in the mornings, his knee cracking every time he rose from the couch. 

Geno shrugged in the periphery of his vision, which served to confirm Sid’s suspicion that the therapy could only do so much. “It’s go okay. I’ll be at camp.”

“Yeah?”

Geno nodded slowly. “One more time,” he said, a familiar refrain. 

He’d first started saying it when Sid retired, a year after they built the house. They’d just had another child, and hockey was becoming a distant second priority for Sid. When he decided to call it quits, Geno briefly considered retiring with him then backed out. He’d said he just wanted one more season, one more time to get the team set up for a future without their leadership. 

The refrain had carried into last summer because the Penguins had done so well. They’d taken it all the way to the third overtime of game seven in the conference finals before they were eliminated. Geno had said he wanted one more time because they’d gotten so close. He wanted to try to help the Penguins win it all without Sid, to prove they could. 

When they’d been summarily kicked out of the playoffs in April, Geno had come home quiet and stayed that way for a while. Sid gave him space, left Anna to do the bulk of the comforting because he didn’t think his presence would be welcome. He’d gone out on his own terms, retired while he was still logging almost a point per game. Geno hadn’t put up a single goal in the playoffs, plagued by little, nagging pains and a flare-up of an old knee problem. No matter how much Sid wanted to go tell him it wasn’t his fault the Penguins lost, that he was still so good on the ice, he was pretty sure Geno didn’t want to hear it from him. 

Even when he’d started to come out of his funk, Geno hadn’t said a word about hockey. They’d all packed up to go to Miami in May. As far as Sid knew, Geno wasn’t even paying attention to who was playing anymore, though Sid kept a surreptitious eye on it until Nate’s Avs got shunted out. 

In June, they were in their condo in Moscow for an extended visit while Anna started a project there. Geno glanced at his phone across the breakfast table, and a grin pulled at his mouth. 

“What?”

“Alex just win.”

He turned the phone for Sid to see. The Dallas Stars hoisted the cup on the front page of the NHL website. Alexander Radulov smiled his unfettered, toothless grin in the team photo. 

“He’s same age as me.”

Sid looked up and found Geno looking contemplative, cautiously hopeful for the first time in a long time, and he knew what was coming. 

“I think I can do this. One more time.”

And that’s where they were. They’d left Anna in Moscow to come home when Geno made his decision so he could start getting serious about rehabbing his knee, and they were going again. The roller coaster was reaching the highest peak, about to come careening down into another NHL season.

Sid breathed out slowly through his last rep and racked the bar. He sat up and reached for his notebook to record the weight. When he set it aside, he found Geno watching him with that same, contemplative expression. Sid reached for him and Geno laced their hands together. 

“You okay?”

Geno nodded and shrugged. He looked a little sheepish when he admitted, “I call Anna in the car.” 

“How’s the layover?” Sid asked, because he’d been tracking the flights with his phone. He knew she’d landed in Baltimore an hour ago.

“Long,” Geno said, smirking. She must have done a fair amount of complaining about it on the phone. The smirk dropped away when he looked down at their joined hands. “She say she’s happy to come home. Happy to come watch hockey again.”

“I bet. I’m getting pretty excited, too. It’s always fun at the beginning of the season, before things start getting too serious.”

Geno didn’t look relieved to hear it. His mouth pulled into a sulky frown, and he scratched at his eyebrow restlessly. “You still want to come watch if I skate too slow?” he asked, mumbling. 

“You won’t be slow,” Sid said immediately, a kneejerk reaction to console taking over his better judgment. It wasn’t what he meant, not exactly. Of course, Geno would be slow for the modern game. Of course, those twenty-year olds would skate circles around him, but he was smarter than them. He knew the game better. His accumulated knowledge and skill, built over a career, would make him a contender even if he were the slowest skater in the league. 

Sure enough, Geno looked down, rejecting his generic assurances. Sid jostled his hand to keep his attention.

“Besides,” Sid said, keeping his tone light while he tried again, “we would come watch you if you never moved at all. Just stood there looking good.”

Geno’s mouth relaxed, not exactly a smile but not a relentlessly anxious frown either. Sid would take it. Geno’s eyes crawled back up from the floor and he shrugged. “Maybe it’s best, leave skate to young guys, just stand at back door.”

Sid bit down on a chuckle at the idea that Geno, who had always played all over the ice, could suddenly change his position and camp out at a wing. “Worked for Ovi.”

That got Geno smiling wryly. He didn’t even complain when Sid pulled him in to kiss him again, lingering this time despite Sid’s sweat.

“Dad, Elena’s up,” Nikita called at the door, breaking them apart.

Geno pulled away and pushed himself up on Sid’s thighs. “I’ll get her. You take shower.” 

Sid was more than happy to obey, stripping out of his soaked shirt and toeing out of his sneakers before he departed the gym. The shoes stayed there, at the bottom of the stairs, while he ascended toward the house. He tapped the pad on the wall to close the retractable door and hit the light as he left, then proceeded down the hall toward the shower. 

They’d all had a hand in the designing the master bathroom. Anna had started out practical and insisted on plenty of storage and counter space, though she’d also tacked on a request for the spacious tub. The personal sauna was one hundred percent on Geno, something he’d insisted they include.

“Sure, as long as there’s a shower, too,” Sid had offered with a shrug, because he didn’t overly care. They weren’t exactly hurting for floor space. It would just be another appliance he didn’t use, like a hot tub. 

The builder took his statement as a volunteer to design the shower himself, which led to more questions about tile than he could have ever fathomed. He poked and prodded about dimensions and preferences until Sid edged the line of throwing up his hands and deferring. He couldn’t conjure that many opinions about bathing. He was numb by the time the builder indicated the easiest way to control the moisture would be to have the sauna butt up against the shower. 

“That way, the steam from the sauna and the shower can vent through the same system,” the builder had said, and Sid had nodded along rather than try to invent another preference. 

The resulting setup turned out to be well worth the pain of designing it. The shower and sauna sat side-by-side, sharing a floor-to-ceiling glass wall. The wall between the two was also glass, a fact Sid didn’t think much about until the first time he was showering and looked across to the sauna to find Geno there, legs splayed while he shamelessly watched Sid. When he’d had his attention, Geno leered and gave a meaningful look down to Sid’s dick while he cupped his own. 

Needless to say, Sid had warmed quickly on the sauna. 

The neighboring shower was nice enough, aesthetically pleasing with grey tiles to contrast the warm wood of the sauna, but Sid wasn’t interested in the looks. He cared about the multiple shower heads which pelted warm water down on him, rinsing away the afternoon workout. He put his head back and relaxed in the spray, letting his muscles loosen up.

Unlike Geno, Anna wouldn’t tolerate any fooling around in the shower. She occasionally threw a leg over one of them in the sauna or got down on her knees there, but the shower was a no-fly zone as far as she was concerned. 

“It’s too busy,” she’d complained when Sid tried it once, slipping into the shower after her one morning. She’d given him an extended kiss and barely let him get his hands on her ass before she’d pushed him back and led him out into the bedroom instead. 

The memory had his dick starting to firm up. Sid resisted the urge to stay under the spray for longer, to wrap his hand around his cock for a quick one. There wasn’t time, and he would have more than a memory soon enough. He rinsed all the soap and shampoo off and turned off the taps as soon as he was sufficiently clean. He toweled off on the mat and went to the attached walk-in closet to get dressed.

Downstairs, Sid met Geno in the hall with Elena in his arms, rubbing at her eye with the back of her hand and her mop of dark hair all messy. When she saw Sid, she reached out toward him.

“Somebody wake up grumpy,” Geno said, obviously amused, and passed her over. 

“What’s the matter, sweetheart?” Sid asked gently.

She buried her face in his shoulder and didn’t answer him. Even though they’d never endeavored to find out, he was pretty sure he could guess who her biological father was based on how sluggishly she crawled back into consciousness after naps. He’d been on the receiving end of very similar irritability when prodding Geno up to get ready for a game. 

“Let’s go get a little snack and some juice,” Sid offered, rocking her back and forth. She was warm and a little sweaty from sleep, and she made a discontent huffing noise that Sid decided to take as an agreement. To Geno, he said, “Can you see if Niki wants anything before hockey?”

He took the kids’ snacks and juice boxes into dining room, where he could limit their distractions and get them to focus on eating. The dining room stood separate from the kitchen, its own little space with two exterior walls. Seven windows bathed the room in afternoon sun, providing so much light Sid didn’t need to turn on the overhead.

Nikita joined them at the kitchen table for apple slices with peanut butter by the time Sid got Elena situated in her booster seat, having prepared the snack with the toddler clinging to his neck. He kissed her head when he pried her loose and put a plate in front of each of them.

“Papa said he’s taking a shower,” Nikita announced.

“Did you get your room done?” Sid asked.

“Yes.”

“Papa checked?”

“Uh huh,” Nikita said, munching on an apple. 

Sid glanced at the clock on the wall, thankful he wouldn’t have to spend any time helping Nikita finish cleaning. He didn’t want to cut it close leaving the house. 

Elena perked up while she ate, revived by the snack and the presence of her brother, who she low-key idolized. 

“Lena, guess how many days before Mama comes home,” Nikita said. They’d been counting down the days since they left Anna behind in Moscow to complete her project. Putting a definite date on her return seemed to help the kids know the separation wouldn’t be permanent. They even had a little calendar in the den where they crossed off a day each evening.

Elena scrunched her face up. “One.”

“It was one yesterday,” Sid corrected. “So that means today is-”

“Zero!” Nikita interjected, bouncing in his seat. “She comes home today!”

Elena brightened and looked around like Anna might walk in at the announcement. “Where’s Mama?” she asked Sid. 

“She’ll be at the airport very soon. Papa’s going to pick her up, and then when we get back from hockey, she’ll be here.”

“I want to go to the airport with Papa,” Nikita complained.

“I wish we could, too,” Sid admitted. “But we made a commitment to your team, so we have to go to practice.”

Nikita looked like he might want to protest, but he thought better of it and sighed dramatically.

“She’ll be here when we get back,” Sid said sympathetically.

Nikita nodded and shrugged. “Okay.”

“I want Mama,” Elena said crossly. 

“You’ll see her so soon. But first, we have to go watch Niki’s practice.”

“Skate?” Elena asked, her mood brightening immediately. They’d given her a first pair of skates on her second birthday and she’d not surprisingly taken to the ice like it was her second home. The iceplex had two rinks inside, one of which usually dedicated its afternoons to open skate. They often went skating while Nikita practiced. 

“You can go skate,” Nikita said. “I don’t mind.”

Sid gave him a grateful smile. “Thank you, Niki. We’ll see if the ice is open when we get there. If it is, we can skate.”

When their snack was finished, Sid sent Nikita to his room to get into his base layers and sweats. “Don’t forget socks,” he called after him, because there had been a couple of incidents of bare feet in skates, which had been unpleasant all around. Nikita called back affirmatively while Sid took Elena to get her bundled up. With Elena in her coat and boots, Sid pocketed a tiny toque for her to wear on the ice and took her with him to load up the car. 

When they’d been designing the house, the garage had been more practical than anything. None of them were particularly car people. The closest was Geno, who liked to buy fast little sports cars, but he turned them over pretty quickly every other year. He didn’t collect or repair any cars of his own, so there was no need to have a cavernous space for them. They could easily make due with a three-car garage, but they’d expanded it to five for storage and, as the builder had put it, “Just in case.”

There were two cars in the garage: Anna’s sedan and Sid’s SUV. Between them was a space where Geno’s Porsche would normally sit, if it weren’t still parked in the driveway in front of the house.

Sid packed up the SUV with Nikita’s hockey bag and the smaller gym bag he used to transport his and Elena’s skates. Nikita clambered into the back seat by himself, and Sid was just getting Elena into her car seat when Geno appeared. He’d showered and shaved and dressed like he wasn’t trying to impress anyone, like he just casually wore Armani every day. Sid looked him up and down with immense affection and resolved not to tease him about it. He was allowed to be excited. They all were. 

“Leaving for the airport?” Sid asked.

Geno grinned and nodded, then leaned past Sid into the car to kiss the baby. “Have fun at practice,” he said with a high-five for Nikita across the seat. “Train hard. Skate fast. Score goals.”

Sid closed the car door, and Geno pulled him into a hug. Out of the range of prying ears, Sid quietly said, “I’ll take them for ice cream after. Give you two some time.”

“You ruin dinner,” Geno teased and kissed him. “Just come home. We have time tonight.”

“You sure?”

“Sure. Want to have you here.”

Sid felt warm with the fact that Geno wanted to forgo a rare private moment alone in the house with Anna to have him home quicker. “Okay. We’ll come right home.”

Geno looked nothing but pleased at his acquiescence and smacked his butt when he turned to walk away. 

*************** 

When they got home, Sid barely managed to get the car in park before Nikita scrambled out of the back seat and bolted for the door to the house. He disappeared inside with the door still hanging open while Sid unbuckled Elena from her car seat. “Do you think he’s excited to see Mama?” he teased. 

“Mama!” Elena cried. 

“That’s right. Mama’s home! Let’s go see her.”

Elena thrashed in his grip while he pulled her out and put her down so she could race after her brother, tumbling along on her still-clumsy little legs. 

Normally, Sid would make Nikita pick up his own hockey stuff and take care of it, but he figured it was a special occasion. Anna didn’t go on long trips alone very often, only if she had to fly out during the school year, and that only happened once or twice a year. Nikita could be forgiven for getting excited and forgetting. Sid shouldered both bags, closed up the car, and followed the kids inside. 

The laundry room sat just inside the door from the garage. Sid and Geno had both wanted it there. They’d done enough hauling of hockey gear in their time that they saw the value in having a nearby place to put their bags. 

The room itself was spacious enough to fit multiple gear bags comfortably. It had racks and hooks on one wall, where they could hang pads and skates out to dry. Sid racked up all three pairs of skates, took off the guards, and wiped off the excess moisture from the blades. He hung Nikita’s pads up on hooks and turned on the wall-mounted fan. 

From the outset, the builder had been bemused by the amount of extremely specific requests they piled into the laundry room, none of it having to do with actual clothes. They’d rattled off the hockey-related necessities and he’d nodded along, sketching and making notes, until he finally looked up with a grin and asked whether they would also like washer and dryer hookups. 

“Sid.”

Anna’s voice stopped him, pulled him out of his memories. He’d heard it every day when she called, seen her face in videos, followed her Instas, and still... It felt like it’d been forever. He turned to find her in the doorway, smiling softly at him. 

“You don’t want to see me?” she teased.

He didn’t have a response other than a breathy laugh while he crossed the room to wrap her up in his arms. Her lips found his like she was desperate, like she could have possibly missed him as much as he did her. She wound her arms around his neck and anchored him in. 

“You smell amazing,” Sid said. He couldn’t think of anything else to say. He hadn’t expected to be so overwhelmed. 

She leaned away from him and shook her head. Her hair was coming loose from the half-hearted bun she’d put it in. “I smell like plane.”

“No,” he said. He pulled her in with a hand flat against her lower back and nosed behind her ear. She smelled like warmth and affection and _Anna_. “God, I missed you.”

“I know,” she said simply, playing with him. He nipped at her neck in retaliation and she laughed, moving her arms down to hook around his shoulders before she settled her head on his shoulder. “I miss you, too.”

Anna felt warm, like she’d brought the summer sun with her, smuggled under her skin. He wanted to hold her the rest of the night, breathing her in, but he knew it was only a matter of time. They’d probably already overdone it, outlasted the kids’ patience to be away from her. He squeezed her hips and pulled back. She looked tired from the journey, but also so happy. 

“Mama!” Elena called from down the hall, and Sid could hear Geno’s answering murmur. He’d obviously done his best to give them a quiet moment, but that moment was ending. Geno was losing his grip on them. 

Sid offered her a smile that couldn’t even pretend to be exasperated with their enthusiasm. “You ready?”

Anna slid her hand into his and nodded. They walked hand in hand toward the interior of the house and emerged in the den. 

Geno had Elena struggling in his arms while Nikita bounced on his knees on the couch, impatient. He let Elena down when he saw them, and she toddled right to Anna. Nikita followed and latched onto her leg. Sid let her hand fall away so she could bend and hug the kids. He moved on to Geno and squeezed his arm. 

“Thank you,” Sid whispered, and Geno gave him a knowing smile. He took a huge amount of pride in being a good husband. When he so obviously succeeded, did exactly the right thing to make Sid or Anna happy, he liked to preen about it. 

The kids stayed attached to Anna while they migrated into the kitchen to start on dinner. Sid wouldn’t have minded going to cook alone. He’d half expected the rest of the family to stay in the den and catch up, but when he moved, they followed. 

When they’d been planning the house, before Elena was born, before Sid even considered retirement, the kitchen had been largely designed around entertaining. Anna had firmly insisted that the kitchen was the heart of the house. It had to be warm, welcoming, and big enough to fit one’s entire extended family. 

The result was a roomy, open space, broken in the middle by a large island with a breakfast bar on one side. The kitchen had long stretches of countertop for drinks and plates, a place where people could mingle while they cooked. It had served them well through countless gatherings, dinners with friends and family, and team get-togethers. 

Anna settled at the breakfast bar with Elena in her lap, and Nikita climbed up on the stool beside them. Geno opened a bottle of wine and poured them each a glass while Sid gathered ingredients out of the fridge. 

“Can you dice these?” Sid asked, handing two bell peppers and an onion over to Geno.

“Yes dear,” Geno said, a phrase he’d picked up out of amusement and never put back down. He turned to place a cutting board on the island across from Anna and the kids. Nikita leaned way in until he was practically laying on the countertop to watch him make the first few cuts. Geno hid a grin and glanced up at him expectantly. 

“Can I cut one?” Nikita asked. Since Anna had been gone, he’d taken to helping around the kitchen, particularly when he and Sid were making dinner without any other adults around.

Geno took the whole barstool Nikita knelt on and moved it around the island, blocking Nikita in with his arms to keep him from falling off. He settled him at the cutting board and handed him the knife. “Careful. Small cuts.”

“I know,” Nikita sighed, exasperated. Anna’s eyebrows shot up at the sass and Geno ruffled his hair with a chuckle.

“Here bud,” Sid said, sliding a smaller paring knife across the counter to him.

Nikita set the larger chef’s knife down and took up the paring knife, then began to carefully core the second bell pepper. He did it expertly enough that Anna noticed and looked surprised.

“Dad and Papa let you cook?” Anna asked, sliding a look over at Sid. He was innocently putting rice in a pot and pretended not to notice. 

Nikita nodded solemnly, tongue peeking out between his teeth while he concentrated on carefully dicing the bell peppers. “Well, Dad cooks, but I help a lot. I can slice things and stir and get stuff from the pantry.”

“Very impressive,” Anna cooed in Russian, obviously delighted, which earned a cautious glance from Sid. He’d been a little worried about her finding out. To her, the kids were still her babies, to be protected. He wasn’t sure how she would feel about giving one of them a knife, but she was obviously fine with it, because she continued, “You’re learning so many useful things.”

“Stealing my job,” Geno teased, dropping a kiss to Nikita’s hair. 

“I’m sure we can find another use for you,” she said, her tone innocent enough that the kids didn’t catch it, but Sid turned a laugh into a fake cough at the stove and cleared his throat. She smiled like an angel when he looked back reproachfully. 

When his job cutting vegetables was finished, Geno lifted Nikita down from the stool. “Go set the table outside.”

Nikita made a face at that. He’d thought graduating to help with the cooking would eliminate his other dinner-related chores and had been pretty petulant about being wrong. He trudged over to the silverware drawer with no enthusiasm until Anna rose with a soft smile. “Here, we can help. It will go fast if we all work together.”

The porch had been Sid’s compromise with himself. He knew going in he wasn’t going to have a pool. Nikita had been so young at the time, still learning to swim, and they’d been circling the talk about having another baby. He couldn’t justify letting himself have something so potentially dangerous in the back yard where his children played. So, when the day came and the builder asked about the back yard, Sid had asked for a porch instead, which prompted Anna and Geno both to stare at him like he might be ill.

He’d never regretted the choice. They could always swim when they visited their vacation home in Florida or went back to his house in Canada, and they used the porch a lot. Backyard pool parties at his old place became get-togethers on the porch, where everybody’s kids could run around the expansive backyard without the adults being constantly on guard. 

Anna and the kids predictably didn’t return. Undoubtedly, as soon as they caught sight of the swing set in the yard, they were begging Anna to watch them slide or push them on a swing. Geno stayed and resumed his position of sous chef, something he didn’t take very seriously. He mostly just stole bites of pepper and snuck his hands onto Sid every chance he got. 

They ate dinner together at the table outside, laughing and catching up. The kids wanted Anna’s attention badly, trading off ways to draw her smile and sweet words. Elena showed off her ability to eat a vegetable without making a face, bravely chewing a bell pepper even though everyone could tell she didn’t particularly like it. Nikita asked to be excused long enough to run and get the penguin mask halfway through the meal. Sid allowed it on the condition that he finished his water first, knowing full well he probably wouldn’t be cleaning his plate in all the excitement. 

Elena started to lag toward the end of dinner. She climbed into Anna’s lap and hugged her around her neck, then put her head on Anna’s shoulder. 

“Sleepy?” Sid asked. Elena nodded and blinked heavy eyelids. “Okay, sweetheart. Let’s go get ready for bed.”

“No,” Elena said, hugging Anna’s neck tighter. 

“It’s okay,” Anna said, pushing back from the table to rise with the baby clinging to her like a koala. “I’ll take her.

“Can I play my game before bed?” Nikita asked eagerly after they’d gone.

Sid glanced at his watch, then turned it so Nikita could see. “What time is it?”

Nikita studied the watch with intense concentration. “Um... Seven thirty.”

“If you can play your game for one hour, what time do you need to stop?”

“Eight thirty.”

“Good job. You’ve got until eight thirty to play, and then you have to go get ready for bed. Deal?”

“Deal!” Nikita said, already out of his seat and racing inside. 

Sid started to stand up and gather dishes, but Geno put a hand on his shoulder. “Stay. Finish wine. I can get.”

Sid sipped his wine as instructed, listening to the insects buzz while the last tendrils of light slipped out of the sky through the western tree line. 

Anna returned before his glass was through and eschewed her own seat in favor of settling sideways in Sid’s lap. He happily accommodated her, anchoring her in with an arm around her back. She kissed him sweet and slow, and not nearly as innocently as she had with the kids in the room. 

“Where is Zhenya?” she asked against his mouth. 

“Loading the dishwasher.”

“And Niki?”

“Playing his game,” Sid answered. He brought his free hand up to run a thumb across her cheek. “He knows what time he has to stop and go to bed.”

Anna bit her bottom lip on a seductive smile. “Maybe I can get Zhenya away from his dishes, hmm?”

Sid had no doubt, the way she stood up and sauntered away, irresistible. He drained the last of his wine and pushed himself up.

The design for the master bedroom had taken the most compromise of anything. Sid liked dark, enclosed, cold places to sleep in. If he could hunker down in a cave, he would. By sharp contrast, Geno wanted a lot of open space where he could watch Sid and Anna walk around naked. Anna had wanted light and warmth. 

They’d managed, after a lot of talking, to get a little bit of everything. The bedroom had a balcony with French doors and huge windows to let the light in. When they pulled back the curtains, the room was practically outdoors it shown with so much sun. However, the bed was tucked away in a small alcove with its own set of curtains, which could be drawn to block out any remaining light in the room. It helped with afternoon hockey naps and the rare days they got to sleep in. 

Geno had gotten his way because the room was huge. The interior decorator had attempted to fill the space with a couple of loveseats by the south-facing windows and large, ornate dressers, but there was still a fair amount of open floor space to cover. 

Sid sat at the foot of the bed and watched Anna lead Geno across that space with a helpless smile. She had Geno totally in her sway. Both of them, really, if Sid was being honest with himself. She’d had them both ensnared since the first time they’d each met her. 

It wasn’t going to be a long night of intense lovemaking. It never was after a trip, no matter which one of them went. They wanted and needed to reconnect, but Anna was clearly sleepy from jetlag and more than anything just wanted to stretch out between them and rest. 

Sid cradled her ass in his hands when she crawled into his lap, straddling his thighs to kiss him. His cock was already interested, straining against his jeans. He was a little jealous of Geno, who took the opportunity to strip bare, pooling his clothes on the floor. His jealousy abated when Anna pulled her shirt off and threaded her fingers into his hair to kiss him. 

“What do you want?” Sid asked when she drew back to kiss along his jaw. Anna tugged at his bottom lip with her teeth while she considered. 

“Take this off,” she said, tugging at his shirt. He raised his arms and she pulled it up and off, then ran her fingers down his chest.

”That it?” Sid asked, earning nothing but a light touch down his ribs that made him flinch away, fighting a reflexive giggle. Anna’s smile was a little cruel. She knew exactly where he was ticklish. She kissed away his protest, silenced his tongue with her own. 

“I want you to use your tongue,” she whispered against his mouth. 

Sid’s dick twitched in its confines and officially became too uncomfortable to bear. He wrapped an arm around her back to flip them, settling her on the bed so he was propped between her thighs. He used his free hand to unbutton his jeans while he kissed down her chest. He stopped at her bra, frowning at it, and nipped at the lace. 

“Ah, careful,” she complained insincerely, and rolled to reach the clasp behind her. 

Geno swooped in and unclasped her bra, then helped her pull it off. Sid pushed his own jeans down, kicked them off his ankle, and knelt on the floor between Anna’s knees. He dragged her jeans down her long legs. Then there was only a pair of red, lace panties between him and his goal. He leaned in and pressed his face between her thighs. She smelled so good it made him shiver. 

A hand pushed into his hair, a clear indication to hurry up, but it wasn’t Anna’s. It was Geno, who smirked when Sid looked up. 

“Don’t be lazy.”

Sid sat back enough to pull the panties off, exposing her to him. He glanced up. Geno was kissing her, kneading her right breast with his hand, and keeping her thoroughly distracted. Sid dove in and put his mouth against her sex, offering her a moment to get used to the sensation before he flicked out his tongue and got to work. 

Anna arched her back and gasped against Geno’s mouth. Sid was good at this. He’d been good at it for a long time before Anna, always tried to be attentive to the needs of his partners, but the years of familiarity had only made him better. Instead of having to guess at what each sound meant, each twitch of her hips, he knew exactly. He pressed harder when she whimpered and backed off when she squirmed. When she started to rock against his tongue, he tickled two fingers against her pussy and pushed them inside.

It didn’t take much after that. He thrust his fingers in slowly and rolled his tongue around her clit until she wailed. Geno pinched her nipple when she started to come, ramping up the intensity so she was nearly sobbing. Sid chased her movements, eager to keep lapping at her while she pulsed and trembled around his fingers. 

Anna collapsed back on the bed and laughed breathlessly. “I really miss you.”

Sid chuckled against her inner thigh, trailing kisses along the soft skin there. He palmed at his dick, anxious to get some pressure on it, but she would need a minute before she could take anything else. 

“Sid,” Geno said, tugging at his shoulder. He let Geno pull him up and over onto the bed, crawling over Geno as he laid back. He knew what Geno was after and teased him a little, touching his chest and nosing along his cheek instead of kissing him right away. When he finally pushed his tongue into Geno’s mouth to let him taste Anna in his kisses, Geno made a happy noise and wormed a hand down between them to rub at Sid’s cock. 

“You think you can last long enough to make her come again?” Sid asked, knowing full well he was past that point. He thumbed at Geno’s lower lip while he considered and smiled when he nodded. 

Anna clearly approved of the plan. When Geno moved to sit up against the pillows at the head of the bed, she followed him, crawling on all fours to give Sid a magnificent view of her ass. She grinned back at him before she swung a leg over Geno. She reached down and used his cock to tease against her labia while he gripped her hips. Sid’s dick gave a sympathetic twitch. If he were in Geno’s place, he figured he’d be holding his breath to keep from coming before he even got inside her. 

Sid sat back near Geno’s feet and watched as Anna rolled her hips, dragging Geno’s cockhead against her clit a couple of times before she placed it at her entrance and started to slowly sink down. He licked his lips and watched Geno’s mouth fall open at the wet warmth surrounding him. 

Anna reached back with one hand, blindly feeling for Sid, and he roused himself to go to her. He knelt with a knee on either side of Geno’s left thigh and reached around to splay a hand against her stomach while he kissed along her shoulder. She rolled her head back with a coy smile, but she also reached for his hand to push it lower. 

Anna came again with Sid’s fingers in her folds, gasping and moaning on Geno’s cock. She hadn’t stopped trembling when Sid nudged her forward to lay against Geno’s chest. Geno kept rocking up, hips twitching desperately. Sid petted a hand over Anna’s hip and down her ass, then carefully touched around the base of Geno’s cock, where it was soaked with Anna’s arousal. He wrapped that hand around his dick and pumped it until he came in long spurts over Anna’s back. Geno swore and tensed up, emptying himself into Anna’s pussy while he clung to her. 

Sid reached for his shirt to mop Anna’s back rudimentarily, enough so he could justify collapsing. She smiled like she was trying not to laugh at him, but she would be taking a shower anyways so he knew she didn’t really care. She pulled herself up and off Geno, then settled between them, the center of a warm, satisfied sandwich. 

After he moved enough to pull a blanket up over them, Sid dozed peacefully without worrying about the time. He was vaguely aware of Geno and Anna murmuring together, mostly in Russian. Even though he could normally understand a lot of what they said, his post-coital brain wasn’t alert enough to keep up with the conversation. 

His mind let him drift until he heard her say something about being offered a job in Moscow. Then he was suddenly and rudely awake. “What?” he mumbled. 

Anna turned back to smile proudly. “Moscow gives me job as announcer.”

“Doing interviews between periods, or-”

“No. Commentary,” she said, preening a little because it was legitimately a big deal. 

Sid propped himself up on his elbow. “Wow, that’s huge.”

She shrugged like it was nothing, but her self-satisfied smile said otherwise. 

“Did they want you to start this season?”

“Next season.”

“Good, that gives us a year.” That, at least, was a relief. She looked taken aback before he charged on. “I’ll start looking into schools over there. Niki will be going into second grade by then. It’s not like kindergarten. Every year gets more important from here on out. It’s probably not too early to look at pre-k, too. What age is kindergarten in Russia?”

Geno snorted a laugh. “Same age.” Then he said a Russian word Sid hadn’t heard before, but that presumably meant kindergarten. 

“We’ll probably want to think about buying a house, too. The condo is nice for shorter visits, but if we’re there full time, people might start to wonder about-”

Anna turned and kissed him hard. “I say no to job. Shut up,” she said, laughing.

Sid’s mind spun its wheels, still racing but going nowhere. “You said no to the job? Why?”

“Because we’re here. Our whole family. Nikita has hockey and school. Elena has play friends. We build this house here. For us. To live forever.”

“But... That job, Anna. That’s once in a lifetime.”

She put her hand on his cheek. “So is NHL hockey, but you stop.”

“That’s different. I played for a lot of years.”

“Not so different. You make a choice, I make a choice. We make choice to be here, stay with family. Most important.”

Sid hesitated. No matter how much she protested, he knew she wanted that job. “But we can make it work. Geno can retire next summer, and we can move to Moscow.”

Anna scrunched up her face doubtfully and shook her head. She glanced back at Geno for help when she said something in Russian Sid didn’t recognize other than a few words, which usually meant it was an idiom or old saying.

“We don’t want to be clean rocks,” Geno said, then shrugged when Anna shot him a dirty look like he didn’t even try. He protested in Russian that maybe the saying just didn’t translate. That wasn’t his fault. “Okay, okay. It’s like, we don’t want another... horse? Horse in a river.”

“Don’t change horses midstream,” Sid said, getting it. 

Anna looked back at Geno, who shrugged and said, “Sure. Probably.” 

“Pittsburgh is home,” Anna said, to ensure Sid got it. “Okay?”

It pained Sid to be relieved by her assurances, knowing what a remarkable opportunity she’d been offered. “If you’re sure.”

She kissed him, looking exasperated. “We are sure a long time ago. We already decide together.”

“You hear her. Stop argue,” Geno said when he saw Sid’s lingering doubt. “You keep that face, we go take bath. Come back when you not so frown.”

Anna squealed when Geno swung out of bed and grabbed her up in a princess carry. She whacked his shoulder and called him a caveman, but she also laughed, which he would take as winning. Sid watched them go until they disappeared into the bathroom. 

He lay back into the pillows, feeling a little gutted. Despite her easy brushoff, he knew the job offer meant the world to her. She’d worked for years, half her life almost, to be offered a position like that. She’d already given up so much to be with them. Sid never wanted her to suffer a single thing he could prevent. But he also believed her when she said she would rather stay, that no job could be as important as her family.

Sid groaned his way out of bed and picked up his clothes. The alarm on the side table told him it was past eight-thirty, so he washed up quickly, dressed, and padded out to make sure Nikita had done as he was told. 

He didn’t find Nikita in the den, though he did have to turn off the TV. He flicked off the remaining lights and walked down toward the kids’ rooms.

Nikita had been old enough when they built the house to pick some of his own design features. They’d vetoed everything he was likely to grow out of in a year, but he’d insisted on, “Ladder!” and they’d obliged. He had a loft in his bedroom, where he had recently been allowed to move his mattress. It freed up a lot of floor space to have the bed eight feet up. Sid could see a light from up top, though he couldn’t quite see the bed or the child.

Sid climbed up the first two rungs and found Nikita guiltily sitting cross-legged with a book in his lap. “I’m just getting ready for bed,” he said immediately. 

“I know, bud. I’m just coming to check in. Did you brush your teeth?”

“Uh huh.”

“Good. One book, okay? Then sleep.”

“Okay. Night, Dad

“Night, Niki.”

Sid did a final check in with Elena. She was snoozing in her small bed with the blankets tangled around her. She slept like a tornado, constantly turning and thrashing. He stepped in to straighten the covers and drape them over her, even though she would have them off again by morning. 

He cracked the door a little when he left, because she was at that age where she was scared to be alone in the total darkness. He thought that might have been the impetus for her choice of bedroom, which had originally been a guest room. Her crib and baby things had been in a nursery on the second floor, closer to the master bedroom, but when she got to choose her “big girl” bed, she had demanded the room next to Nikita. It made her feel safe, knowing he was just next door. 

The house was so quiet Sid found himself tempering his footsteps on his way back upstairs. His feet seemed loud on the wood floor. It was quiet enough he could hear Geno and Anna’s laughter when he drew close, drifting out of the open bathroom door. He paused to stand in the dark hallway of the house they built together listening to the sounds of their happiness and smiled.

**Author's Note:**

> I like having a deadline. It makes me obsessively write for a month straight. Thanks a bunch to sevenfists for hosting the party and verity for the prompt. I had a blast.


End file.
